


has known (but had forgotten)

by sunflowerseed



Category: Dunkirk (2017)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-20 07:33:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17618156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflowerseed/pseuds/sunflowerseed
Summary: There is a moment of silence where neither of them says anything. After Dunkirk, he’d recited what he’d say for months and now? Nothing. The shave a nurse must have given him is growing out over his chin but other than being considerably thinner Farrier looks relatively untouched. That is apart from the sling holding his left arm against his chest and the yellowing of an old blackened eye hanging about.‘ Well aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.’ Farrier says and there’s nothing like it, that voice.





	1. Chapter 1

It’s funny how life really does go on like everyone always says. Collins spends exactly six months on stand by. He receives his ruptured duck, rents out a hovel in South London and gets a day job in a factory folding papers. He leads an uneventful life, working 11 hour days and eating corned beef and beans. He keeps in touch with his squadron leader but eventually, he meets a girl at the market buying a box of baked goods. She is blond and blue-eyed and has got an accent to match Collins’ own. He thinks about all the questions his mother has when she calls and the pair of them wind up on a park bench out front of his apartment.

Sloane works in her father’s business as a typist on the weekdays and knits in her free time. She loves peach cobbler and banana fritters but can’t bake to save her life. She snores and hates to wake early in the mornings. She encourages Collins to return to the RAF as a technician. They marry during the summer of ’42, two years since Dunkirk, two years since he last saw Farrier. They move back home to Scots and have a bab in ’43. 

Sloane loves Collins and Collins owes everything to Sloane.

It’s a Sunday afternoon in autumn of ‘45, Sloane is sleeping off a migraine in their bedroom and Collins is sat on the porch with Kelsey dozing in his arms. They’re not expecting anyone so when a car turns down the drive Collins takes pause. Two unfamiliar air Marshall’s step out from either side of the vehicle and Collins stands but he can’t find his words.

They halt at the foot of the stairs. ‘ Morning, sir. We’re here for Finlay Collins.’

‘ Aye, that’s me.’ Collins says readjusting Kelsey against his chest.

‘ We’ve understood that-’ The man’s eyes shift to Kelsey, who’s staring placidly at him. ‘ you were partnered up with James Farrier for the length of your time in the sky, is that right?’

It feels as if he hasn’t heard that name in an eternity and yet goose flesh still raises on his forearms. It’s not as if he hadn’t thunk it, since the death of Hitler and the subsequent Japanese surrender. He’d thought it for weeks on end but had never worked up the gall to post a letter or to travel into town to make a phone call. To Farrier’s sisters, to their squadron leader, to the RAF secretary in London who’d held Collins crying one of those bleary weeks after Dunkirk. Collins nods and he hears the front door open behind him but he can’t move.

‘ Hello.’ Sloane says coming round her husband.

She touches Collins’ shoulder gently and she’s watching him but he can’t look away from the men standing before him.

‘ We were just speaking with your husband about someone he knew some time ago.’

She glances at them. ‘ Is that right?’

The Marshall turns his gaze on Collins again. ‘ This may come as a shock, son. But following the death of Hitler a number of POWs were found in the camps. Your friend was one of them.’

Collins is back on that boat. He’s soaking wet, his ears are ringing, and he feels sick to his stomach. He’s looking up into the sun. He’s looking up at a spitfire. 

‘ Alive?’ He finally blurts and Kelsey starts to squirm in his grasp.

‘ Here, Finlay.’ Sloane takes her from him and paces across the patio.

‘ Alive,’ The Marshall says with a hesitant smile. ‘and asking after you… He, among others, was held for a time in Frankfurt. To recuperate.’

Collins is on his porch in Scotland. He’s standing in front of two RAF Marshalls, his wife and daughter are behind him.

 

A nurse escorts him to the room. His skin is crawling. Farrier is sat up reading from a small leather book. His head turns absently at the sound of footsteps and his expression is near unreadable. Gaunt is the first word that comes to Collins’ mind and he feels sick again. Recuperate, Collins thinks and imagines him thinner. Imagines his skin pulling at the line of his jaw and the flesh of his cheeks kissing his teeth.

There is a moment of silence where neither of them says anything. After Dunkirk he’d recited what he’d say for months and now? Nothing. The shave a nurse must have given him is growing out over his chin but other than being considerably thinner Farrier looks relatively untouched. That is apart from the sling holding his left arm against his chest and the yellowing of an old blackened eye hanging about.

‘ Well aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.’ Farrier says and there’s nothing like it, that voice.

Collins ushers himself to the side of the bed and he thinks he’s never felt something as visceral as this. There are a few things that come close: free falling for one, being shot at, sinking his spitfire in the English Channel. This, however, supersedes them all. Farrier’s shoulders are narrower now but the levity of him still remains. Collins had forgotten how strongly he could feel: how his brain could whir, how his heart could pound, how his hands could shake. Farrier’s thinner, paler. He looks worn down almost, but his eyes are just as blue as they once were. More blue, even.

‘ Christ, Farrier.’ He chokes out before bowing his head against the rail of the bed for a lack of any idea of what comes next.

The fingers that ruffle the hair on the back of his head are warm. ‘ It’s alright.’ Farrier says, almost to himself. ‘ It’s alright. Finn, now look at me.’

Collins blows out an agonizing breath before he dares and then he’s looking up into the sun.


	2. Chapter 2

Sloane cleans the house, buys pastries from the bakery in town and puts Kelsey up in her best dress. They’re standing out on the porch when Collins pulls up the drive and Farrier is grinning from ear to ear in the passenger seat. ‘ They’re lovely.’ He says looking pointedly at his driver. 

He reaches out to nudge him. ‘ Come on, Finn. They’re absolutely lovely.’

That first night is agony. Collins helps Farrier put on the bed linens Sloane had laundered that morning, bids Farrier goodnight and mourns the life he’d imagined all those years. He returns to his bedroom where Sloane is busy wiping away the day. 

‘ You never said.’ She says.

He sits on the edge of the bed and clasps his hands. ‘ What’s that?’

‘ He’s rather handsome, isn’t he? Blackened eye and all.’

Collins raises his brows and starts at his shirt. ‘ Your lot always have it out for the English ones don’t you?’

She’s smiling at him in the mirror.

After a weeks time, Collins offers to take time away from work but Sloane won’t have it. ‘ He’s quite capable on his own, you know. You worry too much.’ She says, her head bowed over the dishes. 

She’s right, Farrier seems entirely unfazed by his circumstance. He helps Sloane with the housework as much as he can with a bum arm. He helps with the baby even. Collins can count on one hand how many times he’s returned home to a quiet house in the last little while. Most evenings Sloane and Farrier have the radio as loud as it will go. They are more likely than not to be found in the kitchen going between bouts of preparing dinner and dancing with Kelsey all while singing at the top of their voices. 

Collins can hardly sleep at night. He tosses, he turns. He feels guilty that he’s not faced what Farrier has and yet he seems more affected. He feels guilty that a part of him sings for Farrier as it has never sung for Sloane or for anyone else. She tries to console his restlessness at first but after a fortnight she grows accustomed or, perhaps, pretends not to notice, Collins isn’t sure. 

It’s mid-October that he slips quietly out of his room. He spares a glance toward Farrier’s door before creaking quietly down the stairs but it’s out the kitchen window that he catches a glimpse of a shadow in the light of the moon on the front porch. 

Their shoulders brush in passing and Collins pushes it from his mind. ‘ Trouble sleeping?’

‘ Just a bit.’

They stare out into the dark in unison. Collins waits. Surely there is something to be said and then finally: ‘ I shouldn’t stay much longer.’ Farrier says bumping ash from the tip of his cigarette.

Collins levels him a look. ‘ What do you mean?’

The crickets are screaming.

‘ What am I doing here?’ He scrubs at his face with the back of his hand. ‘ You’re a family man, innit? And that’s great, Finn… it’s bloody amazing but I don’t make much sense here.’ He looks at Collins then and he’s right. They both know it but somehow it still doesn’t matter.

Collins holds his gaze for a moment. ‘ What is it you’d like for me to say.’

Farrier takes a pull off his cigarette. ‘ Tell me to go.’ He resolves.

Don’t, Collins thinks, Please don’t. 

Shrouded by the night he leans in close and Farrier doesn’t pull away. His hands find easy purchase in the hair that curls over the nape of Farrier's neck. His mouth finds its way as well. In two weeks time Farrier has filled out considerably, through his shoulders mostly. His sling has been binned and the strength in his right arm is returning slowly. Collins’ free hand passes absently over the swell of muscle in his shoulder and through his back, his heart aches for bones and sallow cheeks. Farrier's hands keep conveniently to themselves but Collins won’t mistake his guilt with disinterest. At least not when his whole body yearns forward for a kiss that is clumsy and achingly rushed. 

Collins wishes he could say that Farrier’s lips against his fills 5 years time. That it wipes away the agony and the desperation, the waiting. It doesn’t but when Collins pulls away Farrier pulls him back in and for a moment, just one moment, his mind is quiet. And it’s a speck of relief in a tumultuous lifetime but he knows already, has known (but had forgotten), that it’s enough to keep him chasing Farrier into eternity. 

Collins leaves him there when the sun begins to rise and in the morning they make a sombre pair at the dining table. Sloane passes behind them and threads her fingers in Farrier’s hair. ‘ I think I ought to give you a haircut this aft.’


End file.
